Robot 6

Six by 6 | Six CrossGen series we’d like to see return in 2011

Today’s Marvel announcement, regarding its intention to utilize CrossGen’s concepts at least partially in an attempt to do “a little more genre publishing” in 2011, was rather lean in terms of details. But don’t think that stopped Michael May and myself from compiling a Six by 6 list of CrossGen series we’d like to see return (in some form) and the folks we’d like to see creating them. As always with these lists, we’d love to read your input for what CrossGen properties and/or creators you’d like to see return in 2011.

1. Sojourn. Remember when everyone loved Greg Land? I do, because Sojourn was my favorite CrossGen series and apparently a lot of other people liked it too since it was one of the last to be canceled by the spiraling company. Arwen was a gorgeous, badass hero with a cool dog and a quest to collect five shards of a magic arrow that could kill the evil sorceror Mordath. It sounds like standard fantasy stuff, but Land’s detailed, realistic artwork (no one accused him of tracing back then) brought it to life. He wasn’t solely responsible for its success though. Ron Marz’s writing elevated the characters and situations from genre cliches to honest tragedy and human stories. I’d love it if Marvel could get him back on the book. Land too, if he can still produce the kind of work he did back in the day. (Michael May)

2. Scion. I had a hard time deciding whether I’d more want to read this or a resurrected Sigil. I’ve already picked a favorite Fantasy series, so it’s tempting to go with the Pulpy Sci Fi one, but Sigil never quite lived up to its potential; changing tone with each writer: first Barb Kesel, then Mark Waid, and finally Chuck Dixon. They all brought interesting things to their stories, but the series never found a definitive voice. Scion, on the other hand, had greater consistency in the hands of Ron Marz and Jim Cheung. And with its medieval, Arthurian inspirations and its focus on family conflicts, warring nations, and slavery, it was very different in tone from the Tolkien-esque Sojourn. Marz and Cheung should get another shot at continuing the story. (Michael May)

3. El Cazador. One of my major problems with CrossGen’s series was their unwillingness to set certain stories on Earth. That’s not an issue for Sci Fi and High Fantasy, obviously, but I kept thinking that I’d enjoy Ruse more if it took place in a steampunked version of London instead of on a whole other planet that just so happened to develop in a similar way to Victorian England. They corrected that problem with El Cazador, setting it in seventeenth-century Earth, but I still had a gripe about the pirate series: it was too much origin story and not enough swashbuckling. The concept of a pirate captain named Lady Sin is awesome, but not when her sole focus in revenging herself on one particular, other pirate. The ocean’s too big for such a limited story, so if Marvel were to bring it back, I’d prefer to see it written by someone with as wild an imagination as say Jeff Parker or Paul Tobin. And just to continue shaking things up, let’s get Kody Chamberlain to draw it. (Michael May)

4. Crux. What first attracted me to this CrossGen series was a chance to see Mark Waid writing a team of heroes, unencumbered by DC or Marvel editorial mandates (granted who would realize Mark Alessi’s mandates would prove far more annoying for Waid…). Looking back at the Crux team, it’s interesting to realize Waid’s utilization of twin brothers (Galvan & Gammid) would be an element he would tap into again with Irredeemable‘s Scylla and Charybdis. While it was Waid’s writing that initially drew me in, it was Steve Epting’s art that made me stick around. Honestly, the plot was almost secondary to the enjoyment I got from Epting’s polished approach on this series. I doubt Waid would be interested in returning to this book after so many years, then again he might be eager to tackle the project without Alessi’s interference. If not, while I know Rosemann is quite busy in his editorial role at Marvel, I wonder if he’d be open to tackling the kind of genre work Marvel has in mind for the CrossGen properties. And given that Rosemann spent some time at CrossGen, he may be uniquely qualified given his past and current experience. In terms of the art, for it to be of any long-term interest to me, they’d have to get Epting onboard. (Tim O’Shea)

5. Ruse. While Simon Archard was the detective/lead of Ruse, the appeal to that series for me was always Emma Bishop, Archard’s “assistant” (an intentional misnomer, given the magical power that she secretly wielded). When I more recently interviewed the initial series writer Mark Waid (he left in the middle of the series to be replaced by Scott Beatty) about BOOM’s detective mystery, The Unknown and its lead character Catherine Allingham, I asked him, if there was a connection between Allingham and Bishop. Waid replied in part: ” Actually, Emma’s more tender than Catherine. Catherine has no time for tenderness.” I was surprised then to find Waid speak of Emma as a character he still clearly had a grasp of (in a compare/contrast manner in this instance, understandably). I don’t know if Waid would be onboard for new Ruse tales, but the book was creatively at its peak when he was writing (and Butch Guice was on art). There was a delightful snark to the banter between Archard and Bishop, which I wish to read again. As Michael pointed out already, in retooling this property it would be great if it was set on some form of a fictional Earth, or anywhere other than where the original series was set. (Tim O’Shea)

6. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This was a project that CrossGen released in early 2004, as the walls were starting to crash around the company. It was another of the concepts late in the company’s history that had no ties to sigils or the CrossGen universe bible. As Tony Bedard explained in my late 2003 interview (with him and artist Mike Perkins): “Mike came up with this series, the characters, everything, then asked me if I’d like to write it.” While the original project was a 1960s British spy thriller, as evidenced by the current Steve Rogers miniseries–doing a modern day spy thriller is a genre Marvel clearly has enjoyed for a very long time (at least back to Steranko and Nick Fury). Not to be a broken record, but I would only want to see this series revived if Bedard and Perkins were the team to do it. (Tim O’Shea)

Evan Meadow

To be fair to El Cazador at least, CrossGen only published something like 4 issues before the CG meltdown, right? Hardly enough time to establish a larger story arc in today’s comic book structure. Even though it had only a short run, It was by far my favorite CrossGen title, and I’d love to see it return with the original creative team.

And Negation. First title we really got to see how Tony Bedard is on his own. They may have quickly wrapped up this title before the company imploded, but who the hell cares. I want this one back, too.

funkygreenjerusalem

It sounds like standard fantasy stuff, but Land’s detailed, realistic artwork (no one accused him of tracing back then) brought it to life.

Yes they did – there was plenty of talk that his was taking poses from other sources – there’s some panel where it’s quite clear, even without knowing the source.
It wasn’t as bad though, and the characters faces stayed consistent.

And, his art was of a higher quality than it has been since.

The ocean’s too big for such a limited story, so if Marvel were to bring it back, I’d prefer to see it written by someone with as wild an imagination as say Jeff Parker or Paul Tobin.

But then it wouldn’t be the same book.
Odd to want a book back if you don’t want it’s creator or it’s plot.

Tim O'Shea

“But then it wouldn’t be the same book.
Odd to want a book back if you don’t want it’s creator or it’s plot.”

I can’t speak for Michael, but I know in writing my selections, I wrote them knowing that the early 2000s editorial/corporate mentality that supported the initial tales would not be the same as the editorial/corporate mentality that would guide these concepts in 2011. We would be absurd in wishing for the exact same book/concept–particularly given how forced some of the CrossGen universe ties were in the respective series.

Not to mention, even in the cases where I expressed a desire to have the same creative team (or aspects of it) on a book, the Epting, Bedard, Perkins and Waid of 2004 are not the Epting, Bedard, Perkins and Waid of 2011. If we’re lucky most creators wish to improve upon their past work

rolando

Matt Halteman

Pretty much all of them except The First and whatever the magical chick one was that never interested me and I don’t care enough to look up (Mystic?).

Plus a comprehensive reprinting of the earlier tales, preferably in that nifty “Ultimate Collection” line Marvel’s been doing recently. Big chunks of issues in 2 or 3 books, then finish The Negation War and get rid of the Sigil stuff so all the properties can start fresh.

I really hope this takes off. I loved a lot of the Crossgen stuff and Marvel does need more diversity of genres in their books.

James Schee

Ruse and Way of the Rat of Course. Would love to see SCION return too, solid classic Prince Valiant adventures by Ron Marz and Jim Cheung was a lot of fun. I liked Sojourn, but felt like its story had finished once she killed the big bad at the end of Marz’s arc

Nick Rini

Great List, and Your article reminded me that Crossgen was really, REALLY good. I loved Sojourn and Scion, and I really liked Ruse as well. Those books helped get me back into comics, after being away for about ten years. they were new, always on time, acessible in genres I liked, and ALL had stunning art. Epting. Perkins, Guice, Cheung, Land (when he was better) ….. just fantastic books.

I would buy hardcovers of those books right now, and re-add those books right back on to my pull-list. i hope Marvel is serious about the Crossgen universe.

Honorable mentions:
7. The Path – Very cool samurai epic that tried to deal with religion/faith. This was one of the few CrossGen series that actually managed to wrap-up halfway decently. But I would love to see a new take on this.
8. Ruse – Mark Waid and Butch Guice had fun with this and it would be great to give them another crack at it but with the Sigilverse elements stripped out. Let them do a straight detective series.

Man, can’t they all come back? I think Meridian and Sigil finished their runs, but the graphic novels (which is how I was reading them) never came out. I’m missing the final volumes of both. (And it looks like The Path finished as well, based on some of the comments above. I’d love to have the last volumes of that, also.)

I don’t suppose Marvel will do a rerelease of the work that’s already been done? Too much to hope for?

Josh Alexander

Chris

I never got a chance to read any of the CrossGen stuff and I always wanted to. If they decided to continue those stories and i would love for them to re release the trades on them. If they start a new I’ll most likely be picking up a lot of them

Negation War and The First would be great to see as both are amazing concepts. I thought Scion was finished though. It had a great last issue with Jimmy Cheung doing full page spreads if I remember rightly… I wrote a couple of CrossGen articles in its heyday,

OBrian Tallent

Ruse is a must. The best book published by CrossGen. I dont think it would be that difficult for Waid to come up with a different nature for Emma than a sigil bearer.
Others that I would like to see return are Negation, Crux, Scion and Meridian. I’m not sure if Barbara Kesel is doing anything right now or not, but Steve McNiven is already at Marvel.

Brian J.

Negation, Way of the Rat, Abadazad, and…an unexpected favorite, Route 666, would all be welcome returns. How likely is it, though, that some of the original creators would return to those series? Without them I’m skeptical. Particularly with Negation, Abadazad, and Route 666.

Big Mike

Camax

I would definitely have #1 as NEGATION. It’s still one of my favorite series’ of the past two decades. Bedard and Pelletier were brilliant on this cosmic adventure.

Meridian was probably my second favorite series, and would love to see that come back.

I’m sure I’d read retooled versions of Scion, Mystic, Ruse, Sigil, and Sojourn as well – still have all of them on my bookshelf. There were some other good ones too, but I did like the Sci-Fi/Fantasy ones best.

Tom W

There’s an assumption here that the creators from the original CrossGen would even want to return to the titles. What if they don’t? People are allowed to move on, after all. Who knows what memories they have of their time at CrossGen and what revisiting them could dredge up.

Also, Marvel hasn’t said if they’re going to continue those old CrossGen stories, or start over (although they have mentioned they’re looking to retool the books) so maybe they’ll be something new and different. Maybe they will be starting from scratch (and I’m guessing they’d have to), in order to bring in a new audience, to make the books accessible. I appreciate that a lot of people commenting here are fans of those books (and it’s brilliant to read that passion).

But if the books are new and different, with different creative teams on them, and not direct continuations of what you know, will these books still win your support? Will you read a new ‘Ruse’ book that doesn’t have the continuation that you’re hoping for, for example?

I suppose we can only answer with : time will tell.

David T. Allen

Rout 666 was a great series. All crossgen titles we’re very well put together. The company had a really good system on getting things done there and they put some highl quality product out in the market place that gave us a diverce group of comics properties. I got everything from them. Loved the mix of different ganras in one universe. The big gap in space would lend it’s self to a story that is currently happening in the Marvel univers in the cosmic books whare they have a big gap in space that goes to other galaxys and so forth.

PaxHouse

Sylar Wesker

Meanwhile…back at the Marvel House of Ideas….. there are hundreds of characters under the Malibu license (ahem Ultraverse) that are also partially creator owned ala` Crossgen that are just sitting on the sidelines.

Come on Quesada, Ultraforce had toys AND a cartoon, Firearm had a promo movie, Nightman had a TV show AND is still stuck in 616 world.

Before going to expand and acquire properties like DC does, use the ones you already bought then expand, like DC did.

I really took it personal seeing a “Prime” doppelganger show up as one of the Army of Supermen in FC

Alvin

I was a fantasy type as a teen, not big with sci-fi, space adventures, it was always Superhero stuff for me I thought Sojourn was great, then the collected book Edge came out it became one of my favorites besides Sojourn, Scion, Ruse, Mystic and Way of The Rat, bring it all back! later!

jason_w

The only Crossgen I read was The First. Mainly for the Bart Sears art. It was just like another poster noted that it was a lot like “Dallas” and “Dynasty”. It had intrigue but was very light on the action.

I can’t speak about the rest of Crossgen’s output, but the biggest drawback The First had: not that much happened in a single issue.

You had to read several months worth of issues to get a good flow to the story.

Kurt, the Crossovers came up in our discussion while making our list of six, but it did not make the final cut. I think that was some of the last work that Robert Rodi did in comics, judging from his website (http://www.doggedpursuit.net/about). It appears in recent year he’s focused on prose novels as well as non-fiction book.

While I appreciate (and agree with) Tom W’s observance that not all creators may want to revisit their CrossGen period, I could not see The Crossovers working as effectively without Rodi onboard (if he’s interested). Was that partially creator-owned by Rodi (or am I misremembering that aspect)?

Sylar, it’s been stated (often) that Marvel can’t bring back the Ultraverse as the original creators had too much of a stake in the profit structure to ever make it worthwhile for Marvel. It sucks (a lot), but that’s the case.

I’m amazed by the number of series mentioned here that they are willing to drop the original creators by the wayside. El Cazador would be crap without Chuck Dixon. It was clearly very much his personal vision of what a pirate comic should be. The same goes for the wide variety of books Bedard wrote for the line.

Oh, and I would like to see American Power actually get printed, just to see how controversial it really was, but I’m not holding my breath for that one.

I was going to write up the Crossovers for the list, but Comic-Con got the better of me so I asked Tim and Michael to round out the list instead of waiting on me.

Crossovers was part of CrossGen’s Code 6 line, which was their non-Sigil universe stuff. According to Wikipedia, they were partially owned by the creators and partially by the company. Here’s the initial announcement from 2002:

I’d take out “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and replace it with “Meridian”. However, I really would like Marvel, for the sake of all us Crossgen fans, to finish “Negation War”. It was what they were building towards and would give us a sense of closure. Then they can start over from scratch.

Werehawk

AndyB

Is it wrong that my first thought wasn’t about any of the Crossgen properties but more to the Malibu properties. I get the Malibu rights issues might be trickier, but right now no one is making any money off of them so work out a deal and merge the Ultraverse & the Protectors with the MU.

OH yeah and bring back Nightcrawler so I can start buying Marvel again!

DF

I really want to see Abadazad come back! That was the only Crossgen book I actually collected (all two or three issues of it). J.M. DeMatties tried a prose book series (didn’t last), never got to read it. I think it would great to see that one back. J.M. and Plogg again. That would be wonderful.

I did get to read some of the other Crossgen books online when Crossgen was putting some of them up for free for awhile. I liked Ruse. Negation seemed very interesting, but I didn’t get to read much of it.

So, my main hope is for Abadazad, but I’d def. read a Ruse series with Mark Waid! Not sure what else I’d check out. It would be very cool though to see Marvel doing these very un-superhero like books! About time!

DF
” Don’t get me wrong, I like superheros, but its def. nice to see something different once and awhile.”

Ultra8

I had honestly forgotten that disney owned the rights to crossgen(I really should have expected this in some form).
Ruse, Way of the Rat, Mystic, The First and Negation were some of my favs, though I had meant to look into Scion, Meridian and some of the others.
Hopefully they’ll at least finish Negation War before starting anything new(DC covered the loose ends of Milestone before doing anything new with it’s characters), As for whether Marvel continues or starts from scratch as long as they republish the older tps I’ll be happy.

Hans

Marvel wouldn’t have to rework El Cazador… all they’d have to do is republish the first three issues, and then continue from there. No shared universe Sigil stuff in that title. I would only pick it up with Steve Epting on art duties, though. And the colorist was great, too.

I also still hope Marvel will throw the old Crossgen fans a bone and allow Tony Bedard and Paul Pelletier to finish Negation War, so that we at least get closure on the entire Sigil-verse.

The books I read at Crossgen were Crux (but it was only good when Mark Waid wrote it), Negation (it ended though, to be replaced with Negation War which still has to be finished….), Ruse (again, only great when Mark Waid wrote it), the George Perez title (only liked the art but not the story), Sojourn (it went downhill after Ron Marz left) and El Cazador (because of the Steve Epting art I also loved so much on Crux).

I think Ruse could be brought back easily, just find another reason why Emma has magical powers. El Cazador could be picked up right were it left off, without any changes. Sojourn could be re-invented. I’m not sure if many of the original creators would be available, though. I don’t think I’ll go back to Ruse without Mark Waid writing it, for instance. Or El Cazador without Steve Epting on art.

I’m curious to see what Marvel will do with these properties, though. Will be cool to see some of them again.

redvector

I’m more interested in what’s happening with the Malibu-verse characters. Like Andyb said nobody’s making any money off them so it seams pretty stupid to let them languish and not use them. Now that Disney owns Marvel you should see some movement on that front. Either the creators will be offered a lump sum payment for all the rights or a royality agreement will be worked out.

Brian from Canada

CrossGen’s absence hurt comics. Working at a store at the time, I couldn’t help but notice that their books were notably different for their choice of genres, and appealed to readers of all ages AND genders.

My favourites were Ruse, Sojourn and Meridian. Those series had, in my view, the most potential from the get-go and were solid foundations for a comic book company that was supposed to last for a while.

The real question I have is: can Marvel resurrect them successfully? And can they keep the idea of the mystic sigil while still breaking the connection between series (which is where they should go).

As for the Malibu universe: yes please. And the original New Universe, not the crap reworking of it. And, hell, let’s even get a regular Millie The Model series going — certainly there’s enough writers out there that someone could rework her into a girl-friendly book? Reading through the back catalogue via Internet, I am amazed at all the decent series and characters that just stop and are barely referenced. Why make new characters when you can bring other classics back to the fore?

[Or just give them to Bendis; he made Scott Lang, Luke Cage, Dakota North and Jessica Drew relevant after they languished about.]

“So here’s a case where clearly our specialty beyond media in general is publishing comics, and being able to take these concepts, put them through our Marvel lens and use our Marvel brains on them to distill them down to their core ideas so we can put them back out into the marketplace and find new and lasting value in any number of ways – that’s an interesting and exciting challenge…”

Follow the CBR link for his full answer. I thought folks might find this supplemental info of interest.

Snikt snakt

Ed Z.

They were all interesting titles, ranging from good to great, and I’d like to see them all return. It’d be worth it to hold out for the original creative teams, though, unless they outright say they’d never be interested in returning to the books. I don’t see why they wouldn’t be willing to return – I don’t think anyone left unhappy with the title they were on or with the other members of the creative team. Maybe with the company and office politics and whatnot, but not the creative part, which is pretty much the only part that Marvel would be able to offer them anyway.

Ruse, El Cazador, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Way of the Rat all top my list, though, based mostly around the fact that they’re each a different genre that isn’t explored enough in comics. I, too, would still love to see American Power, just for the heck of it.

Rod G.

dieter nagy

Good list, but Mystic and Way of the Rat are missing.
And, you know, Negation was easily the best title of them all and the last being published as far as I remember.
Personally i don’t care about Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.